I can’t believe none of the other bloggers in Howard County picked up on this. I actually found out from one of my commenters who lives in Georgia who alerted me to it. Money Magazine is out again with their survey of “Best Places To Live” for “small cities” and this year, the combination of Columbia and Ellicott City is in the Top Ten, coming in at the eighth spot. Here is what Money Magazine says about Columbia/Ellicott City.

One of the nation’s oldest settlements (it was founded in 1772), Ellicott City snuggles up to one of its newest, Columbia (a planned community conjured up out of 14,000 acres of farmland in 1967). This duo remains a perennial contender on our Best Places list thanks to its mix of charm, comfort and careful zoning.

Historic Ellicott City’s steep Main Street is lined with antique shops and teahouses, while Columbia, a cluster of nine residential villages around a town center, is home to offices of such high-powered tech companies as Arbitron, Merkle and Northrop Grumman. No wonder residents’ median household income has risen more than 20% since 2000.

Though traffic can be a headache, it’s easy to escape it: More than a third of Columbia’s acreage has been set aside as open space, including a 950-acre nature preserve, a skateboard park and three lakes.

There are a couple of glaring errors in their data table that may or may not have affected their choosing Columbia and Ellicott City. I don’t know when this snippet was written, but the tax rates indicated in the tables are a little stale. The table indicates we only pay a 5% sales tax, which of course, was jacked up by Martin O’Malley and Democrats to 6% late last year. Also, the highest income tax rate is now 5.5%, not 4.75% as indicated in the table.

If I was in a snarky mood, I would point out that in 2006 before a certain someone became County Executive, Columbia/Ellicott City was ranked #4…..

Anyway, living in the 8th best place to live in America is a pretty darn good place to be. It is always cool to see your own city so high up in a list like this….